


Cool Kids

by Quilly



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, also mentions of julia, in which lup and magnus srsly need to hang out more, taako is kind of here, working in the canon grey areas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 07:29:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12007959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quilly/pseuds/Quilly
Summary: Magnus, Lup, and a pair of sunglasses: a bromance.





	Cool Kids

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Treegona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treegona/gifts).



> Request from Treegona, just some Magnus and Lup hanging out. It got more emotional than I meant it to, but Oh Well.

The first time Magnus met Lup, it was IPRE orientation, he was a little hungover, and she was smirking as she levitated his sunglasses off his face and onto her own. Her brother, whose name he would learn later was Taako, stifled his hysteric giggles in her shoulder as she slid his shades down her nose and winked at him. Magnus supposed he should’ve been grumpier about it, but between Captain Davenport’s warning look and the instructor clearing their throat, Magnus didn’t get a chance to do much more than frown. After a few minutes, the sunglasses fit back onto his face and he fought down a smile.

The twins had their training, and Magnus had his, so they didn’t cross paths much, but Magnus had a feeling he knew who it was when his shades floated off into oblivion again during a lunch break. The elf was wearing them again, this time tucked up onto her head, and she and her brother bracketed Magnus between them and sprawled in an elegant sort of way all up in his personal space. Not that he was much bothered by it, to be honest, but strangers probably should’ve cared more.

“You’re huge, my dude,” the elf that stole his glasses said. “Also, your taste in eyewear is rad.”

“I’m pretty much the best ever,” Magnus shrugged, and pushed his tray towards the male elf, who was picking fries off his lunch and crunching down obnoxiously. “I would like those back, though.”

“Cool,” the elf said, stretching back and setting her elbows behind her on the table. “Name’s Lup. That’s Taako.”

“Sup,” Taako said, and went back to making very quick work of Magnus’ half-finished meal.

“I’m Magnus,” Magnus said, and went to take his glasses back. Almost quicker than he could blink, Lup was standing a few feet away, Taako slinking up by her side, and they gave him matching predatory smiles.

“See you around, Maggie,” Lup said, and as they walked away in sync Magnus considered running after them for his glasses, but his rare moment of hesitance was rewarded by said shades floating back to him, neatly folded.

His exchanges with the twins were always brief—a couple of quips, a smile, and then sauntering away. Magnus was a little confused about their end goal, here, but whenever Lup stole his sunglasses she always gave them back later, so it wasn’t that bad, really.

His first full conversation with them happened at the end of the year, during what the recruits were calling Hell Week—a solid week of assessments, tests, and interviews, determining who was going to be staying in the program. Magnus wasn’t too worried about it, since that afternoon he’d bench-pressed his commanding officer when he’d told him to demonstrate what he felt he brought to the Institute. The same could not be said for the twins, who, for the first time since Magnus had met them, looked agitated instead of smugly bored. They sat across from him at the cafeteria this time, as one reaching for his food. Magnus produced two bags of chips from beneath the table and shoved them at the twins instead. Taako looked confused for a moment about what he was holding before shrugging with a “thanks, my man” and digging in. Lup examined her bag, looked at Magnus, and grinned, squeezing the bag and popping it open.

“Rough week?” Magnus asked.

“You could say that,” Lup replied. Taako made a derisive noise around his chips and chewed furiously, swallowing them down.

“More like a nightmare from the bowels of the Underdark, if you ask me,” he said. “None of the instructors here have any idea what they’re doing, we can spell circles around them for days.”

“It’s nailing down the technical jargon that’s the worst,” Lup grimaced. “Sure, calling it an arcane core is all well and good, but it’s totes like the Tesseract from that Maarvell Comix scroll, so why not call it like it is?”

“Written exams are a special kind of torture, really,” Taako added. “Practical exams are way better.”

“Most of my exams are practical, so I feel you there,” Magnus shrugged. “I guess it’s different for arcanists joining the Institute, huh?”

“You’re, what, security personnel?” Lup asked, and Magnus nodded. “Way different ball game there, kemosabe. Gotta use what’s in here,” Lup tapped her head, “not here,” she finished, poking Magnus’ arm.

“You guys wanna go hit up a few bars when the day’s out?” Magnus asked, and the twins looked at each other for a moment before turning back to Magnus, smiling widely. It was a good thing they wore their hair differently, or there’d be no telling them apart.

“Magnus, my dude, my man, my main compadre,” Taako said, “that sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

In the years to come, Magnus would learn a lot about how to party with Lup and Taako. On more planes than anyone could ever dream of, he’d do an obscene number of pub crawls, keg stands, and bar hops, and get hopelessly wrecked at most of them. The ones he’d remember, usually there would be a reason why. But Magnus, back then, back during that first night, with all three of their futures hanging in the balance, didn’t know any better.

“Oh, you sweet summer child,” Lup said, “we’re gonna show you a truly gnarly time.”

-

If pressed, Magnus could recall a few hazy memories from the first time he and the twins went out, but the most vivid sensation was the nauseous, pounding headache he had the morning after, along with a healthy coating of glitter and a bruise on his jaw (neither of which went away with a cold shower and both of which lingered for far longer than he thought possible). He had his sunglasses on as well as a hat when he showed up to the Institute the next day for final evaluations. The twins, dressed in a curious amalgamation of their clothes from the night before and definitely things from his closet, slouched beside him up to the building.

“Mags,” Taako mumbled, bags under his eyes and probably still a little drunk, “if we don’t make it in there, I’m gonna find you and beat your everything into a puddle.”

“The fourth bar was your idea, dude,” Magnus grunted back. “Now shut up, we’re awesome, and we’re gonna do fine.”

“If you say so,” Taako grumbled, and as the twins peeled off to their wing of the Institute, Magnus’ glasses shot off his face and onto Lup’s. He scowled at her, and she shot up a peace sign before catching up with her brother. Magnus pulled his hat down a little lower and grumbled his way into his classroom.

-

“So,” Captain Davenport said, folding his hands on his desk, “Mr. Burnsides, you’ve tested excellent on all your physical examinations, and your instructors are overflowing with praise about your improvisational battle tactics, but I have no less than six notes here detailing concerns they have about your temperament outside of combat, and your written exam scores leave much to be desired.”

Magnus shrugged. “I’m more of a practical kind of guy, sir. You can’t study and plan for everything, you can only act in the moment.”

“I see,” Captain Davenport said, holding Magnus’ eyes with calm authority. “Magnus rushes in, yes?” Magnus shrugged again, a smile quirking his mouth. “The Institute does not need security officers who rush into situations half-cocked, Mr. Burnsides. And your lack of respect for your superiors shines through in almost everything you do.” Davenport leaned forward, and despite his diminutive size, Magnus was intimidated, his moment of amusement sliding off his face. “Explain in a sentence why you deserve to be here.”

Magnus bit his lip, opened his mouth, and closed it again. After a moment of furious thinking, he said, “I act because hesitation in a dangerous situation costs lives, and yeah, I’ll give you that maybe I’m not the most formal of dudes, but I think the Institute needs more men like me, who can think on their feet and push ahead, rather than sit around brown-nosing or fretting they’re stepping on toes.”

Captain Davenport made a few notes on the paper in front of him, then put his pen down and laced his fingers together. “That was bordering on run-on sentence, Mr. Burnsides, but I’ll allow it. I have one final question for you.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You’ve become close with a pair of twins in the Arcanist Department, is that correct?”

“You mean Taako and Lup?” Magnus asked, furrowing his brow. “Yeah, I’d say we’re friends.”

“What do you think of them?”

“I think that’s more than one final question, sir,” Magnus said, and Davenport’s mouth buckled almost into a smile before he schooled it back down. “I think they’re cool. Can’t speak for their magic powers too much, since I’ve never seen ‘em in action before, but they’re close, and I like them.”

“Okay,” Davenport said, making another note. “That will be all, Mr. Burnsides, thank you.”

“You got it, Cap’nport,” Magnus said, and Davenport snorted a laugh. He followed it up with stern captainly glowering, but Magnus just saluted and exited. Hey, if they were gonna keep him, they’d have to deal with him, and Magnus loved puns. (Later, when he told the twins what he said, Lup snorted her drink up her nose and Taako laughed so hard he fell off his barstool; Lup slid Magnus’ sunglasses back onto his face and solemnly proclaimed him “the master now.”)

-

A hundred planes and apocalypses later, Magnus Burnsides was dozing beneath a tree outside Neverwinter, taking a break from reconstruction efforts, when something dropped onto his face. He awoke with a start, then panicked for a minute before he remembered his vision was dark because of the glasses on his face, not because he was going blind (or, gods forbid, the Hunger was back; he’d seen it destroyed with his own eyes and yet he knew he was never going to stop half-expecting dark opalescent galactic death for as long as he lived).

“Sorry there, big guy,” a voice said, and Magnus grinned, shifting the shades up on top of his head. Lup, still a lich, floated overhead, and if a skeleton could grin Lup was doing her best. She settled her incorporeal form down next to Magnus on the ground, crossing her arms behind her head and splaying her robes out like her sprawling legs used to do in her flesh body. Where her raw power intersected with his meat form was tingly and warm, but not in a bad way. Magnus let out a deep breath of contentment.

“Body not ready yet, huh?” Magnus asked.

“Nah. Barry says it’ll be another couple of days,” Lup said. “I told him I didn’t care if it was a bit early, and then Taako mentioned going through elf puberty again and, well, nah, son, I did it once. Never again.”

Magnus laughed. “Don’t blame you.” He twisted the ring around his finger, a nervous habit he’d picked up in the decade since he’d seen Lup, so maybe it wasn’t so surprising when she cleared her ghostly throat.

“Gonna tell me about the ring, my dude, or am I gonna have to get the gossip from my sweet baby brother?”

“Not much to gossip about,” Magnus said. It didn’t hurt to talk about Julia anymore, not since he finally started talking to his friends about his feelings (and…whoever he gave up in Wonderland), but with the doublethink still going in his head of “spent a hundred years in found family space adventures” Magnus and “lived a decade with no memory of that century and went through some hefty stuff” Magnus, it was a little confusing to try and marry the two parts of himself. Lup’s spectral foot nudged his leg, and he nudged back, phasing right through.

“Her name was Julia,” Magnus replied, “and we were married for a few months when…somebody…bombed the city we lived in, while I was on a trip away. She and her father were killed.” At Lup’s quiet swearing he shrugged. “It sucks, but I know I’m gonna see her again when I finally kick the bucket here, so that…that’s okay.”

Lup whistled. “A lot of what you were doing while I was in umbrella town makes a lot more sense now. You were always reckless, ya big lug, but not careless. Not since Fischer. Not in that last half-century.” She laughed. “You were almost mature, homie. I was wondering what happened.”

Magnus laughed too. “A lot of stuff,” he said, and sighed. “A…a lot of stuff.”

Lup twiddled her skeletal thumbs, then elbowed Magnus (or elbowed through Magnus). “Hey. Mags. Maggie. Mango. Magnum. Mag-dude.”

“Yes, Lulu?” Magnus replied, and Lup casually flicked a tiny flame onto one of Magnus’ sideburns. He swatted it away before it could do much damage.

“When I get my body,” she said, “you and me, we’re going on the town. All-night rager. We’re gonna take the liver Barold so kindly regrew me, and trash it.” She paused. “Was Julia a party animal?”

“Drank me under the table,” Magnus said, and Lup burst out laughing. “This one time, _she_ carried _me_ home from the bar, and she actually finished the bottle.”

“I’ll pour one out for her, she sounds awesome,” Lup said, and floated up. “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to being a working man. Lucretia said she wanted to pick the ole spectral brains about something, so I’mma go take care of that.”

“Sure,” Magnus smiled, and waved as Lup vanished. He settled back against his tree and flicked his shades down over his eyes to catch another quick nap before heading back into town.

(Later, back in her body and ready to party, Lup would steal Magnus’ shades again like old times and parade around the Neverwinter taverns in them; much, much later, she’d clutch the sunglasses to her chest and smile a watery smile at a white-haired Magnus as he winked and told her they always looked better on her, anyway.)


End file.
